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Careers

Providing good, impartial careers education, information, advice and guidance can inspire and support young people to achieve their full potential. We are working with Mrs Humphrey, an impartial careers adviser from Aspire-Igen’s Shine Service, and have initiated a programme of employability and careers activities across the school

We are fortunate to have received funding to access support from Barclays ‘Transformation Trust’. This has allowed us to hold workshops for Years 7, 8, 9, and our Post 16 along themes including confidence building, CV building, route to a career, money skills, using social media effectively and recognising their own skills.

During the year we hold many careers feature events. For example, during ‘Careers Week’ students enjoyed careers related activities throughout the week during form time including learning about employability skills, gaining insight into different sectors of work and finding out some online resources that can help them to understand where their strengths can take them.

We also hold mock interview days, most recently in partnership with Job Centre Plus. These are invaluable as they allow students to have the opportunity to experience the whole recruitment process through completing a job application, preparing for an interview and practicing their interview skills with an employee of the civil service. We hope this will give them a confidence boost and a useful insight into the recruitment process.

Our Aspire-Igen career professional, Mrs Humphrey, provides the Shine Careers Service in school. She provides impartial advice for students at critical points in their school journey as they make important career and educational choices. Aspire-Igen advisers are qualified and trained careers guidance practitioners, with access to local, national and European labour market information. They will help students to:

identify their interests, skills and abilities

make sense of the options available to them for work, education and training

consider a range of possibilities, and set aspirational goals

make their own decisions and choices

Our priority is to ensure all Year 11 students who need one will have a careers interview. Students from other years who either request an interview or are referred by teachers will also be seen. All students will be provided with a printed ‘careers action plan’ which details clear next steps and useful information.

We are continuing to use Unifrog which is an online careers tool that the school has bought in to support students. Unifrog is a one stop shop for students across Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5. It enables students to compare every University course, apprenticeship and Further Education courses in the country and find information about sectors of work. Personalised dashboards tell both students and teachers their next task. As well as tasks they’ve already done and what they still have to do. The platform works just as well on mobile and tablets as it does on desktops. Students can therefore work on their personal statements whilst travelling to school

Running alongside these extra activities, we will have our usual PSHE programme for Years 7-10 where they spend an hour a week on various activities to develop self awareness, an understanding of society and how to be productive members of it. We aim to devote extra time within PSHE to careers in Year 10 to help them learn about the recruitment process.

Young people often turn to the internet and social networks for information and advice about some of the career ideas they are having. However, there so many websites and sources of advice available that often young people are unsure where to start and what to look for in the first place. This attached document has a wide range of suggested websites which are a good place to start.